Beach Days, part 2

Did you know that you can drive from one side of the Island to the other in under an hour - even when you follow the speed limit.

Funny story - on the first day we were driving to Mimi and Pop's house (there is a great debate over who the house and beach belong to but I will not take sides) it seemed to take forever. Especially with  Jude and Haylyn asking every 5 seconds if we were in the Cayman Islands yet (they held the belief that we were not in the Cayman Islands yet because we were not at the house yet) and could we swim in the ocean.

Here is the conversation and events that followed:

Haylyn: "Mimi are we there yet?"
Mimi: "Almost."
Haylyn: "Can you drive faster?"
Mimi: "We will be there soon."
Haylyn: "Drive faster Mimi."
Mimi speeds up and says, "ok."
Haylyn: "How much longer? Faster! Faster! Faster Mimi!!!!!"
Mimi goes faster yet, "is that fast enough?"
Haylyn: "No. Faster Mimi."

At this point we look up and see a police car parked on the side of the road. We are waved down and the police woman proceeds to inform Mimi that she was driving to fast. Mimi, extremely thankful to not be driving her car with Cayman plates and thankful to not be asked to show her drivers license which is in fact a Cayman license gets off with a warning (because she is obviously a tourist) to please drive slower. Mimi pulls back on to the road, driving significantly slower.

Haylyn: "Mimi, did you get a ticket?"
Mimi: "No."
Haylyn: "Mimi, why did you get in trouble?"
Mimi: "Because you made me to go faster."
Me: "But remember Haylyn nobody can make you do something you are not supposed to do."

Bwhahahahaha!

Enjoy some more pictures:

Shiloh helping Pops grill. 

Mimi had a friend make these adorable shark slippers, the kids were excited about them until Chad asked them to take a picture.

Asher's slippers.

A friend of my parents brought us a Wahoo fish and cut it into stakes for us.

Iguana in my parents bushes.

Jude with a fresh cut coconut. Yum!

Looking at the iguana. Can you spot it?

Haylyn helping Asher. She is too sweet! Going to make a great big sister!

Haylyn reading to Jude. She is so smart we read this book once and just by looking at the pictures she was able to pretty much re-tell the story. Love that little girl.

Beach Days, part 1

My parents own a house on the Northside of the Cayman Islands and for the past 4 years they have blessed us by paying our way for a visit. We have enjoyed 4 week long trips to the Caymans after Christmas. It is truly wonderful and I am so thankful for my parents generosity! We love our time every year - I mean seriously who wouldn't love leaving temperatures in the 39's and go to a low of 77 and a high of 83?!

We spent the day before departure bemoaning the rain and cold because the boys could not jump on their new trampoline - sad day. We also cleaned the house, did laundry and packed. Unlike most years we did not stay up until 1am or after packing. We were in bed by 10pm! Hurray! Except Asher chose that night to not sleep - so we didn't get much shut eye before we had to be up at 5am. Thank you Jesus for coffee!

We arrived at my parents house a little before 6am and proceeded to change out car seats, in the cold and rain. I had to take off my shoes before they became soaked through (I could think of hardly anything worse than traveling for several hours in wet cold shoes) and my feet were like ice. I faced my first battle against coveting when I sat down in my parents tahoe and my dad said, "push that button it will turn on the seat warmer." It is very easy to want something that someone else has and much harder thank God for what you have, in my case a car that is paid off, has enough seats and car seats for the family God has given us and whose heater works sometimes - but I am truly thankful for what God has given, so I told God I needed help being thankful for the gifts he has given me and help to not want the gifts he has given others. God gives help when you need it and I found myself the victor over coveting.

We made it to the airport and through security, used a starbucks gift card to get some more coffee and then we boarded the plane! We made it safety to beautiful weather, drove to the East Side and ate our favorite restaurant, Tukka. We had a few minutes of hope when we found out the Texans were winning and the Ravens were losing but alas the Ravens came back so our playoff hopes were dashed.

We spent the next couple of days enjoying the sun, sand and waves.

A Happy Christmas!

We had a very very happy Christmas!

We celebrated the birth of Jesus.
We had a fine time visiting family at my parents house Christmas Eve.
We enjoyed presents and coffee in the morning.
We loved having family join us on Christmas day.
We read the Christmas story, sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and ate cake (along with the rest of our deserts).
We had a blast playing with our presents.

Here are some pictures from our celebrations (how many times do you see Lilah?):